Category: Announcements

Berita is an international award-winning “Afro soul” singer-songwriter. She is headlining the IUPUC-sponsored event Arts for AIDS on Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Columbus. Image courtesy of Berita

Sponsored by IUPUC, the annual Arts for Aids “Songs of Hope” event will raise awareness and funds for the AIDS crises abroad. The 2018 event is set for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, at Yes Cinema in Columbus.

The concert will be headlined by Berita, a South African-based “Afro soul” singer-songwriter. The young performer has earned several national and international awards, including the Zimbabwe Achievers Award for Best Music Artist. Berita’s discography includes a 2017 self-titled effort.

Arts for AIDS is a Columbus-based initiative formed by combining the efforts of five organizations representing projects in Haiti, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI invites you to a special event to celebrate the scholarship of our students and further the notion that the building of a community requires the open and free exchange of ideas.

This contest provides IUPUI undergraduate students an opportunity to showcase their commitment to peaceful resolution of conflict through extemporaneous oration.

The theme of the of the event is Peaceful Conflict Resolution and Communication.

Did you ever wonder why there is so much conflict in society? Or, how you could contribute to the solutions?

The two TLC’s (Themed Learning Communities) taking part in tonight’s event explore issues of culture, race, and ethnicity patterns of human interaction, through the disciplines of sociology, religious studies, and human communication via public speaking and inter-group dialogue.

The Curtis Memorial Oratorical Contest was founded by Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, Richard Curtis, and his wife, Beth, to honor the memory of his brothers, Robert and Dana, both of whom were killed at war.

This past spring semester, I offered the course Spanish for Business online. During that time, I learned a lot about online teaching and made the typical rookie mistakes.

My own attitude towards technology is ambivalent. I will review experiences, along with what I learned since then, and explore what factors influence how we feel about technology, how we use it, and how it impacts our teaching.

As about 100 men and women become U.S. citizens Nov. 14 at IUPUI’s Hine Hall Auditorium, Edgar Huang was across campus teaching. But he’s no stranger to the emotion and excitement that come with a naturalization ceremony.

The associate professor in the School of Informatics and Computing and past president of the Asian Pacific American Faculty and Staff Council at IUPUI became a U.S. citizen in 2010, ending a years-long odyssey from student visas to permanent residency to waiting for a citizenship application to be approved.

“It means a lot,” Huang said. “It’s a long journey; getting there’s not very easy.”

Talk to any naturalized citizen on campus and you’ll glean a story about perseverance and a love for America. For Huang, coming to the United States from China was about freedom at its most basic levels.

Huang, a photographer early in his academic career, documented the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. “I saw everything except the last day, fortunately and unfortunately,” he said. Five years later, in a first-of-its-kind exhibition in San Diego, California, he showed the world what happened at Tiananmen Square through his photos. Later, he moved the whole exhibition online and attached his name to it; his wife, who was already a U.S. citizen, feared for his safety.

“Nothing really happened at Chinese customs when we visited Beijing in 2002, but we were very nervous,” Huang recalled. “That’s why we thought the naturalization process for me to get citizenship would be a good idea — so the Chinese government could no longer easily detain me as a Chinese citizen.”

Huang, 56, who first arrived in the U.S. in 1993 as a graduate student at the University of California San Diego, got his permanent residency through marriage in 2004. His citizenship application then spent years in process, ending on an unforgettable day in 2010 at the downtown Indianapolis federal courthouse.

“I stood there with other new citizens, and we gave oaths. I was very proud, very happy,” said Huang, a father of three, including one who is serving as a lawyer for the U.S. Air Force. “It’s a very different feeling when you have citizenship.

“Now, I publish with great freedom. I don’t have to worry about saying anything offensive to a government. And I like to live in this country for the very fundamental things. People have basic trust for one another. In the morning you say ‘hello’ to a stranger, and he or she will smile back. People are very kind.”

A new group of soon-to-be Americans will experience those emotions themselves when they go through the naturalization ceremony Nov. 14 at IUPUI.

“Seeing men and women from so many cultures and nationalities coming together as new Americans is an incredibly moving and important moment,” said Hattie Harman, naturalization coordinator for the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of Indiana. “Naturalization ceremonies are a crucial symbol of our democracy.”

Huang won’t be there in person, but he understands the spirit.

“I feel so warmhearted for them, they have to go through a whole lot,” he said. “I would congratulate each one of them.”

INDIANAPOLIS — Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI is presenting the 2018 Christel DeHaan Family Foundation Visiting Artist Lecture with Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley on Nov. 28, followed by an opening reception for the annual Undergraduate Student Exhibition and a holiday art sale supporting Herron student artists and designers.

MacArthur Award “genius” grant recipient Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, performance and her distinctive wordplay in graphically stylized films made in collaboration with her partner, Patrick Kelley. During the talk, the collaborative duo will discuss the visual language of “The Minotaur Trilogy” (2013–15), a series of short narrative films exploring the Greek Minotaur myth and, through it, the present-day roles of women, sexuality, language and art historical tropes.

Opening in conjunction with the Kelleys’ talk is the Undergraduate Student Exhibition, an annual tradition featuring exceptional works produced by Herron students across a variety of artistic disciplines. This year’s guest juror is Betsy Stirratt, director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington, who will award prizes to the top entries. Additionally, the ceramics, furniture design and printmaking clubs will sell student-made artwork and wares, and students in studio art and technology will present live puppet performances featuring laser-engraved sets and characters fabricated in the school’s Think It Make It Lab.

The talk and opening reception will take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Nov. 28 at Eskenazi Hall, 735 W. New York St.

The opening reception is made possible by Prizm: The Artist’s Supply Store, with in-kind support provided by Sun King Brewing. Parking will be free in the Sports Complex Garage adjacent to Eskenazi Hall or on levels 5 and 6 of the Riverwalk Garage, courtesy of The Great Frame Up Indianapolis, with validation from the Herron galleries. Visit HerronGalleries.org for more information.

Located in Eskenazi Hall on the IUPUI campus, the Galleries at Herron are free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays.

In the Basile Gallery: “Stuff(ed),” an exhibition featuring the work of five contemporary artists who explore the playful, subversive power of sculpted fabric to transform and reimagine mass-market commodities and bric-a-brac from everyday life. Participating artists are Jessica Dance, Gil Yefman, Andrea Pritschow, David Gabbard and Natalie Baxter.

About Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley

Mary Reid Kelley earned a B.A. from St. Olaf College and an MFA from Yale University. She is the recipient of a 2016 MacArthur fellowship and has received awards from the American Academy in Rome, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and the College Art Association. Major exhibitions include Salt Lake Art Center, Utah; SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts; and ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Patrick Kelley earned a BFA from St. Olaf College and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has taught photography, video and new media courses at the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Skidmore College in New York. His works have shown at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information-Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany; and the Minnesota Museum of American Art.

About the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation Visiting Artist Lecture

The Christel DeHaan Family Foundation Visiting Artist Lecture brings prominent contemporary artists to Herron to present their work and ideas.

About Betsy Stirratt

Betsy Stirratt is the founding director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington. As director, Stirratt has curated exhibitions for over 30 years, including the exhibits “Personal: Selections from the Robert J. Shiffler Collection,” “Human Nature” and “The Miniature.”

About the Herron School of Art and Design

Founded in 1902, Herron School of Art and Design is the premier accredited professional school of art and design in the state of Indiana and is part of the thriving urban campus of IUPUI. Herron has more than 50 full-time faculty serving 11 undergraduate and three graduate programs and a curriculum that prepares graduates to be leaders in a world that requires a unique combination of creativity, conceptual skills and technical abilities. Herron is an engaged community and regional partner including five public galleries; community learning programs; and the Basile Center for Art, Design and Public Life.

The Luis Alberto Ambroggio Center for Latino Studies is housed in Room 323 of Cavanaugh Hall and is open to the entire IUPUI community. Photo courtesy of the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI

In addition to being a world-renowned poet and essayist, Luis Alberto Ambroggio has been a lifelong collector of Spanish literature and history books, many from well before his time.

It’s a priceless collection. And it now resides at IUPUI.

The Luis Alberto Ambroggio Center for Latino Studies, part of the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, formally opened Nov. 1 in a ceremony at the center, housed in Room 323 of Cavanaugh Hall. Among the distinguished guests were Ambroggio; Garry Holland, education chair for the Greater Indianapolis Branch of the NAACP; Elia James from the Lawrence city government; IUPUI Executive Vice Chancellor Kathy Johnson; and representatives from the Indianapolis mayor’s office, the Lawrence mayor’s office and the office of Rep. André Carson.

“The center is not only for Latino studies; it’s open to anybody, in any major. Students can use the library to continue research,” said Jose Vargas-Vila, director of IUPUI’s Latino Studies program. “In the future, we’ll use it to invite scholars and writers to IUPUI.”

Nearly 2,000 volumes are in the center, covering classic Spanish literature, linguistics, American history and more. The center is in partnership with the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, of which associate professor Rosa Tezanos-Pinto is a full member and editor of the academy’s bulletin.

“Latino studies is a flourishing area of study in the School of Liberal Arts, and the Luis Alberto Ambroggio Center will do a wonderful job of serving students for years to come,” School of Liberal Arts interim dean Robert Rebein said. “To have such a wonderful collection within our walls is a remarkable testament to our school’s programs.”

The connection between Ambroggio and IUPUI was forged by Tezanos-Pinto through annual conferences around the world. Tezanos-Pinto told Ambroggio about the growing Latino Studies program at IUPUI, and an interest and a bond were formed.

“She made the impression, and Ambroggio chose this university — from among several others — to pass on his collection to a place that would be a permanent location,” Vargas-Vila said. “He wanted to donate the books that belonged to him and his parents.”

Some 700 students take classes in Latino studies each year from two full-time and four part-time faculty. Students have had internships with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with the city of Lawrence and inside the Indiana Statehouse.

Have questions about Digital Humanities? Come to IUPUI Arts and Humanities on Wednesdays from 12 to 1pm to meet with Caitlin Pollock, the Digital Humanities Librarian at the Center for Digital Scholarship at University Library! Caitlin can help you think through your project and develop next steps or workflows, and recommend methodologies, trainings, tools, and platforms. Caitlin can also advise on data visualization, Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines (TEI), textual analysis, data management, and project management. Your DH research can just have started or in the middle development. No appointments required, first come first serve.

Drs. Kelley and Fehrenbacher have been awarded a five-year, $2.3 million grant from the NCI to continue their studies on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, or CIPN. Tim Yates photo.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana University School of Medicine cancer researchers who have been working to lessen the debilitating side effects caused by chemotherapy have been awarded $2.3 million to continue their studies.

Jill Fehrenbacher, PhD, and Mark Kelley, PhD, are recipients of the five-year grant (1R01CA231267) from the National Cancer Institute, which will enable them to continue their studies on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, or CIPN.

The duo and their colleagues will test the effectiveness of a small, targeted molecule called APX3330 to prevent or reverse CIPN caused by cancer drugs in tumor-bearing mice.

“For patients with CIPN, this might be an option for pain relief or neuropathic symptom relief in the future,” said Fehrenbacher, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at IU School of Medicine and a researcher at the IU Simon Cancer Center. “Alternatively, for patients undergoing chemotherapy treatments, it might be something we can administer alongside the chemotherapy drugs so they never develop CIPN.”

Fehrenbacher added: “The critical element of this grant is that we also are validating our preliminary results that the drug does not compromise the ability of the chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells.”

Although cancer treatments are becoming more effective and people are consequently surviving cancer in increasing rates, many patients report neuropathy — a nerve problem that causes pain, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet and muscle pain and weakness. As many as 30 to 60 percent of cancer patients say they experience neuropathy.

Neuropathy can become severe enough for some patients that their treatment needs to be reduced or stopped. The effects also can linger well beyond the course of the treatment.

Currently, there are no effective treatments or preventive treatments against neuropathy because researchers don’t yet understand all of the mechanisms that lead to it. It is believed that neuropathy develops over time as a cumulative effect of chemotherapy that alters the function of sensory neurons, which are responsible for detecting pain and touch.

In 2017, Kelley, associate director of basic science research at the IU Simon Cancer Center, was first awarded a $2.9 million grant (1R01CA205166) from the National Cancer Institute to study CIPN. Fehrenbacher is also a co-principal investigator of that initial grant. That grant was awarded because Kelley, Fehrenbacher, and colleagues had previously demonstrated in the lab that increasing the repair activity of a protein called APE1/Ref-1 decreased neurotoxicity. The aims of the 2017 grant are to study, in detail, the mechanisms by which APE1 alters the function of the sensory neurons. Interestingly, they also found that APX3330 was effective in reducing APE1’s ability to facilitate the growth and spread of tumors in mice models, therefore this new drug has the potential to block the advancement of cancer and CIPN.

“It’s very rewarding to receive funding for these studies from the NCI in continued support of our efforts to further advance APX3330 for anti-CIPN studies, both in the lab as well as in the clinic,” Kelley said.

Kelley pointed out that APX3330 is currently in phase I trials, supported by Apexian Pharmaceuticals, to test its safety for people. Kelley is a co-founder and chief scientific officer at Apexian, which plans to advance APX3330 for phase II trials for anti-tumor and anti-CIPN studies. Kelley called those studies a “potential win-win for patients.”

APX3330 was developed based on Kelley’s nearly three decades of cancer research.

The National Cancer Institute awarded both grants as part of its Provocative Questionsinitiative, a program aimed at promoting cancer-related research on important yet understudied areas or research questions that have proven difficult to address.

Garo Z. Antreasian — Herron alumnus, Indianapolis native and former Herron faculty member — died Nov. 3 at the age of 96. He had an extraordinary artistic career and was a noted painter, lithographer and art educator.

After serving in World War II, Antreasian completed his studies at Herron and began teaching there even before receiving his degree in 1948. In the 1950s, his own creative work began receiving awards and critical regional and national attention. In 1960, he was appointed technical director of the newly formed Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, a pilot project to revive fine art lithography in America.

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About the IAHI

Established in 2012, the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute (IAHI) supports research and creative activity across the Indianapolis University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus; serves as a campus liaison to the central Indiana community; and fosters ongoing partnerships and ventures that advance arts and humanities endeavors at IUPUI and in Indianapolis.